Friday, October 23, 2009

If you've got two ears, two eyes, a heart and a passing familiarity with English like me, I assume you too must love the bounty that is Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Those people care. They love law, order and rape victims. They're the thin blue line between you and all the sick, twisted perps out there. But, as they debuted their eleventh season, I realized two things. One, they must be running out of ideas. Two, I've watched enough episodes that there's no reason why I can't write my own fan script.

Well, it took a couple of weeks, but here it is. I hope you enjoy it. I really feel like I got in touch with the characters and some serious real-life issues.

WARNING: SOME OF THIS CONTENT IS OF AN ADULT NATURE AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.

We fade in on a crime scene, with sirens wailing in the background and horns honking. It's a beautiful, spacious penthouse apartment, sparsely decorated with top-of-the-line modern furniture. Camera captures several technicians taking pictures and dusting for prints, then pans over to a man's body on a king-sized bed, naked except for the bed sheet covering him. The bed sheet is soaked with blood around the crotch. The MEDICAL EXAMINER is looking at the body, as DETECTIVES OLIVIA BENSON and ELLIOT STABLER inspect the scene. STABLER opens a wallet.

Looks like the vic was a "Doug Robb." Hey, I know that name, that's the guy from my daughter's favorite band — what'stheirname, you know... Hoobastank.

I've never seen anything like this, detectives.

What is it?

There's really no other way to put it. His testicles are just destroyed.

You mean "removed"? Kinda surprised there were any there to begin with, if it's the same guy.

No, they're still there. What's left of them. I'd put the time of death about eight hours ago, just a few minutes after... this... happened.

Whoever did this knew the vic. This is personal. And the reason is him.

Look at this, El. His cell phone. Looks like he was texting and using social networking up to... looks like eight and a half hours ago. Maybe he invited the killer over.

DET. BENSON is sitting at a computer with a large plasma-screen monitor, browsing a social-networking website with a blue color scheme. The victim's picture is displayed prominently at the top left of the screen.

What kind of sick website is this? FaceSpace? People just tell the whole world about themselves? Whatever happened to modesty?

People are putting their whole life on display without thinking twice. It's like inviting every pervert in America into your living room.

And what's this "I love lamp" thing this guy has as his personal quote? These people will do it with just about anything. Least on the street people have the decency to keep it on the down-low.

You think that's bad? Between FaceSpace and Tweeter, people will tell other people when they go to the bathroom. No need for the Big Brother surveillance state anymore. Just give people the technology to monitor themselves, and they'll use it without thinking of the consequences to their own personal security.

The vic — this nutcase — wants someone to "murder his balls."

He what?

This sick bastard likes fat people to stand on his scrotum, Cap'n!

Those "sick people" are called Flatliners, detective, and their community is growing.

A sense of horror dawns on STABLER'S face as his DAUGHTER walks in the station.

What's wrong, El?

(to DAUGHTER) Listen, your boyfriend... he doesn't want you to... stand on his balls, does he?

(hissing) He bought you platform shoes? What's his name? I wanna talk to this kid.

I don't see what the big deal is, dad. He just wants me to be taller and his balls to be shorter.

You said he wants you taller? It could be a body modification fetish. He hates his own body for being ugly, therefore now he hates all bodies considered "normative."

Kathleen, you talk about trust? I gave you that, but everything in your life has been spiraling out of control since I got you out of that ball-standing arrest.

I've got something!

What is it?

One hour before the vic was killed, he asked someone named "Kinky_Friedman420" to "punish his balls."

Kinky Friedman? Like the singer?

Different guy, but whoever he his, he has over 150 pictures of balls.

(to DAUGHTER) If this kid you're seeing wants someone to kick him around, it looks like he just found the right guy. I'm gonna deal with him and you later. But for now, you don't see him again, understand? (to BENSON) Let's go check this guy out.

BENSON and STABLER stand in the background of a large fluorescent-lit office, showing a picture of victim DOUG ROBB to a worker, who then points them to a mustachioed man sitting far in the foreground. As they approach him, BENSON says:

KINKY FRIEDMAN FOUR TWENTY?

KINKY FRIEDMAN breaks into a run, trying to make his escape through the office. STABLER chases him down and pins him to a copier.

Why would I deny it? I didn't know him personally or socially, but we interacted online.

And you went over there and "punished" his balls?

It's what he asked me to do. He enjoyed having his balls punished, and I enjoy punishing balls.

Yeah, well, maybe you won't like it when we tell your friends and family what you like to do with balls?

Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.

You're proud of what you do?

You don't understand. I don't know why I hope anyone will understand anymore.

Well why don't you enlighten me?

You're so stuck in your categories and hang-ups about human sexuality that you aren't willing to open yourself to the possibilities that pain and roleplay give you. I spent years trying to deny who I am, and when I finally gave in to those desires, it's like my universe unfolded and revealed something new. Each person's universe is like Brer Rabbit's bramble. You have to drop the sword of Damocles to unfurl the bramble flag of possibility and spread out the unique quilt that is our diversity. I realized this while punishing someone's balls as I saw them take the punishment and text about it to someone else half a world away in Sri Lanka: the world is a ball because the world is flat. You can see anyone in the world from the place where I'm flattening your balls. That's just the way the ball bounces now, whether you fumble it forward for a strike or you drop it against the ropes and send it running home with a dunk. So if you want to call me a "Flatliner," you go right ahead. I know which way the world turns. It turns into a line. There are thousands like me. The flattened world means we cannot be silenced.

You disgusting bastard. You make me sick. I oughta kill you with my bare hands right in this room. Maybe I should flatten your balls, huh? Tell me, is that what you did to Doug Robb? Did you flatten his balls?

Of course. That's what he asked me to do.

Then I've got some bad news for you, buddy, because when you murdered his balls, you didn't stop there. You murdered the rest of him, too. Tom Friedman, you are under arrest for the murder of Doug Robb. You have the right to remain silent....

He and his lawyer made a convincing case that he couldn't be held responsible for the murder because of diminished capacity.

...

What?

In addition to being invited over by the vic and doing exactly what was asked of him according to a FaceSpace PM, he claimed the vic made him drinks, and he was too crunk at the time.

Ahhh, the familiar Sippin' Dat Purp defense.

To be fair, he was pretty out of it. He started talking about Captain Cragen and complained that he was arrested by an anthropomorphic hyper-turtle.

Oceanographers have recently discovered that sea turtles can live for well over a hundred years.

Figures. I used to think I'd live forever back when I was still drinking.

This is BS. How can he just walk like that? That case was solid.

Well, for one thing, detective, he claimed that you threatened to kill him in the interrogation room, which coerced his confession. For another, he and his lawyer made a convincing case that the sex was a consensual act and a legitimate free expression of their interests.

LAWS... it's like the lawyers want to protect the killers more than the victims. Let's see laws keep your family safe at night. Let's see what happens to society when we care more about laws than human beings. Let's see the kind of justice that happens then for the victims.

This sort of thing wouldn't happen on the STREET. I'm from there.

Yeah thanks, counselor. Great victory for justice. I guess you could say the only person who lost his freedom of expression was Doug Robb, of Hoobastank, when he died in that bedroom when someone murdered his balls.

Liv, El, people have a right to free expression. That's our job as much as anything, to protect people from us — and from the criminals out there.

Well maybe Tom Friedman should have thought of that before he murdered Doug Robb's balls.

Actually, I've been doing some reading, and according to this copy of New Things That Happen Times, it appears that Genitorturophiliac Eroticism is the second-fastest growing fetish in the United States, and its attraction may result from a disorder of the hippocampus that associates pain with the same neuro-receptors that are triggered when taking ecstasy. Also—uh, sorry that's my cell phone.

Really makes you think.

Yeah, well, don't think so hard that you forget to make a clean collar this time — I'm talking to YOU here, El. Now, I want to go back and reexamine every part of this case. There's got to be a way to get this guy.

Too late. I just got a text. When processing Friedman for release at Riker's, another inmate stabbed him in the kidney with a shiv. He died before he even got to the prison infirmary.

Damn. Looks like he got away with it.

Maybe not. That was my assistant on my phone. Turns out Doug Robb of Hoobastank had taken a massive amount of Warfarin. We don't test for this in clear cases of exsanguination, but maybe we should have. It's a blood thinner. With the sort of dosage he was on, he would have bled to death pretty much instantly from any intended or incidental cut.

You mean he—?

—wanted to be killed? I'd have a hard time concluding otherwise. There's no medical reason to take that amount of blood thinner, and you can't get high off of it. When your vic reached out for someone else to come over, he wanted help. He literally wanted someone to murder him and murder his balls. Funnily enough, my assistant sent all this to me as direct messages in Tweeter.

Someone wanted their balls crushed to death and wanted to die. Makes you think.